Pearl-2 project grants P1M for software development

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) - Pearl 2 has recently signed a memorandum of agreement with CebuSoft organization for a P1 million grant to strengthen the new organization and develop a strong software development industry in Cebu.

Pearl-2 field manager Ed Sutherland said software development is one of the industries being supported by the Pearl-2 project, because it has a huge potential for growth, if given the proper support.

Initially, CIDA-Pearl 2 supported small software developer companies to expand its market base in order to participate in international fairs, such as the eServices trade fair in Manila last February of this year.

Since CebuSoft is still a very new organization, Sutherland said Pearl-2 is willing to help strengthen the organization's structure, like providing internationally at par training for an executive director to manage the group.

CebuSoft president Mike Jurado said earlier that because of the struggling field in the homegrown software development industry, number of companies declined significantly, most of them were forced to close their companies, and preferred to try their luck outside the country.

There were about 30 I.T. software companies in Cebu in the past year. Now, there are only about 20 of them surviving, Jurado said.

Sutherland said part of the P1 million grant provided are 11-modules training for CebuSoft executive director which training structure is patterned after the Canadian standard.

"We would like the group [CebuSoft members] to expand their market penetration, and develop strong capabilities," Sutherland said in an interview. He said Pearl-2 is keen on helping industry organizations with huge potential and has capability to expand their market, but its reach is hampered by financial resources availability.

Jurado also earlier called the attention of the Philippine government to put sincere attention to local software developers, in order to maximize the Filipino talents.

"Software developers should be given attention by the government in terms of assistance and incentives, in order to encourage I.T. programmers to develop programs that will be proudly called Philippine-made," Jurado said.

On the other hand, DTI chief Juan B. Santos earlier vowed that his office will be studying how to effectively introduce a program that could provide incentives or perks to potential, but small software development companies.

The Philippine software development industry has remained struggling, and suffered constant brain-drain problem, because most of them which are startup companies are hit by the entry of multinational software development firms in the Philippines.